Developing Maine’s Future Business Mavens
The voice at the other end of the phone line is upbeat, polite and professional. It’s also, surprisingly, very young and very helpful.
Welcome to the world of Farmington’s Changemakers — the Center for Entepreneurial Solutions that develops business enterprises for disadvantaged youth. The organization is young — created in the spring of 2018 by teacher Bonita Tompkins and her Entrepreneurial Program students. The participants are young also, ages 10 to 24. Through business education and skills development, the CES mission is to educate them to thrive as business and community leaders by assisting with work/job creation, personal growth and knowledge in their field of choice and by providing tools and resources.
Following two years of success, in the spring of 2020, the CES program acquired a retail and makerspace on Farmington’s Main Street and, in spite of COVID, launched an inventory of products made in the program and traditional gift store items that are sold to support the operations. The store is an internship site and the adjoining makerspace where products are developed and branded has a variety of electronics and business furnishings for participants to become familiar with an office setting and what normally takes place there. To date, 144 youth have benefited from the program.
An adjunct mission conducted under CES has been “Making Home Possible,” which resulted in the construction of Maine’s first tiny home on wheels for homeless youth thanks to over two dozen businesses that contributed materials and knowledge. The project’s goal is to solve the lack of affordable housing which is particularly important in Franklin County which does not have a homeless shelter or youth center and where its many homeless youth are at risk for dangerous situations.
What’s next for CES is the development of a 6-acre campus on nearby Whittier Road with a mixed-use marketplace and shops, an innovation and manufacturing center and trails. An additional 5-acre donation will be developed for further youth entrepreneurship opportunities.
How can interested adults contribute to the program? Start with shopping at CES in Farmington to support these young entrepreneurs and their dreams. For more information, visit cesmaine.org.
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